Posts tagged ‘Kenneth Ford’

In Eavesdropping Ep12 I discuss the range of values on the quantum scale for length, speed, and time. I use a few illustrations to help provide a perspective for how big and how small our physical reality is.

Eavesdroppingis conversational, informal podcast that is sometimes a monologue, or dialogue with guests, on various topics including philosophy, theology, science, contemporary events, and random meanderings of a philosopher. The primary focuses are philosophy of science, multiverse scenarios, and Molinism.

In our experience, intentions get actualized any number of ways[1]: A sculptor by chiseling at stone, musicians by writing notes, engineers by drawing up blueprints. In general, all actualizations of intentions can be realized in language. Precise enough sets of instructions in a natural language can tell the sculptor how to form the statue, musician how to record the notes, and engineer how to draw up blueprints.

Why should an act of speech be God’s mode of creation? Language is the universal medium for actualizing intentions. The language that proceeds from God’s mouth in the act of creation is the divine Logos (Jn. 1.1-5). In the act of creation God the Father speaks the divine Logos in the power of the Holy Spirit. The divine Logos is not just language in the ordinary sense (utterances that convey information), but the very ground and possibility of language. Words need power to accomplish their end and God’s Word has that power (Is. 55.11).

Given that we are made in God’s image, the Trinitarian structure of creation is reflected in human speech.

“The word [goes] out of the mouth of God in such a manner that it likewise ‘[goes] out of the mouth’ of men; for God does not speak openly from heaven, but employs men as his instruments, that by their agency he may make known his will.”[2]

Atomic nuclei range from about 10-4 to 10-5 of the size of an atom. If the atom were about the size of a medium-sized airport (say, 3 km) then the nucleus would be about 30 cm, about the size of a basketball. Now imagine the airport, 3 km, having a sphere encompassing it. If you change the basketball to a golf ball you have a rough scale of the hydrogen atom with its central proton. Inside the golf ball are the quarks. Change the scale from the proton being the size of a golf ball to the size of a marble, about 1 cm. The sphere is now the size of the earth’s orbit. The actual size of a proton is about 10-15m. This is equivalent to one femtometer, or one Fermi (1 fm). The smallest distance probed is 10-18m, which is one thousandth of a fermi. The fundamental particles such as quarks are smaller than this.

The radius of the Hubble volume, or known universe, is about fourteen billion light years, which is about 1026m away. The size of your desk is about 1026 times smaller than the universe and only 1018 times larger than the smallest probed distance. The mean distance between the large distance of the universe and the smallest distance probed is 104m, or 10 km. This means that the mean distance of the universe is about six miles.